Competition: Win a Copy of All The Good Things by Clare Fisher

Viking, June 2017

Hello to Clare Fisher and the blog tour for her novel, All The Good Things which was released on 1st June by Viking.

What if you did a very bad thing… but that wasn’t the end of the story? 

Twenty-one year old Beth is in prison. The thing she did is so bad she doesn’t deserve ever to feel good again.
But her counsellor, Erika, won’t give up on her. She asks Beth to make a list of all the good things in her life. So Beth starts to write down her story, from sharing silences with Foster Dad No. 1, to flirting in the Odeon on Orange Wednesdays, to the very first time she sniffed her baby’s head.
But at the end of her story, Beth must confront the bad thing.

This competition is now closed.

We have three copies of this fantastic novel to give away. 

To enter, comment on this post. Tell us who you are and roughly where you are. The closing date for comments is Sunday 11th June 2017 at 23.59. The three winners will be picked at random from the entries and announced on the Novel Kicks blog on Monday 12th June 2017.

I will also contact the three winners via e-mail so please do check your junk folders. Open to UK only. (Prize coming directly from publisher so allow a few days for delivery.)

Good luck everyone.

My verdict on All The Good Things…. 

Twenty-one year old Beth is in prison. The thing she did is bad and she knows she deserves to be there.

Her counsellor however won’t give up on her. Erika asks Beth to begin writing down all the good things in her life. As Beth begins to write her story, she knows she will eventually get to what put her in prison and she will have to confront it.

If I had to sum up this book in one word…. wow! Beth has not come from a loving home. Taken from her mother and put into foster care, Beth is never at a place long enough to call it home. Her relationship with her mother only serves to add to her feeling of inadequacy, abandonment and failure.

This book gives the reader the view from the side of the child put into care and how someone ends up in a hopeless situation where the world seems to be stacked against them. Beth understandably gets angry with her mother, her foster parents and the system. There are certainly many layers to Beth that are not all revealed straight away… including why she’s in prison.

She’s a character who is very much alone and is constantly looking for her place in the world and is not a stranger to being let down. Not in a long time has a character broken my heart quite as much as Beth.

The plot is made up of current day events; Beth writing her letters to someone and flashbacks explaining her current situation. It moves well and the writing pulls you in to Beth’s life. I really did get immersed into the lives of these characters.

This book is an emotional rollercoaster, intense in places too. It’s insightful, compassionate and it really makes you think. Despite having finished it, it’s still on my mind. Clare Fisher deals with mental health in a way I feel is well done (mental health is a subject close to my heart) and this book helps to highlight how much of a taboo subject it still is and how it can affect the people who deal with the difficulties that can occur.

This is a wonderful debut novel. If you get a chance, read this book. Well done, Clare. I’m looking forward to book two.

About Clare: 

Clare writes fiction, both long and short. Her debut novel ALL THE GOOD THINGS has been published this month by Viking, Penguin UK, followed shortly by my collection of very short fiction, HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN with Influx Press.  Born in 1987 in Tooting, south London, Clare now live in Leeds; her heart is stubbornly torn between the two cities.

Clare can be found at her website, https://clarefisherwriter.com

All The Good Things is available in most UK book shops or view on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2q1zWY8

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.